Now, Expedia has handed the "Find Yours" storytelling over to its customers with an interactive Facebook app that allows users to make their own transformational videos. The app accesses users’ pictures from Facebook or Instagram and uses Google Maps to create a slide show video of their travel photos. People are prompted to answer questions such as “what are you looking for” and choose locations, photos, filters, and music in order to create their own shareable short film.

"If you work at a nonprofit, chances are you do your fair share of storytelling and that you’ve followed every bit of traditional advice. You know to follow a tried-and-true plotline, use emotion-evoking words and finish with a happy ending or offer a solid solution.

Yes, all of these tips do work. But, there’s more that can be done to really get your audience excited about your story — just follow the lead of presidential candidate Donald Trump."

Love him or hate him, Trump has captured the hearts and minds of many supporters. Read the full article to find out more about these 6 storytelling lessons most anyone can learn from Donald Trump:

"Love reading comics? You're not the only one. What about these stories about super-beings keep our eyes glued to the pages and our minds salivating for more? We explore in this deck how comic writers use these storytelling techniques and how you can apply it in your presentation."

View the SlideShare to find out more about these five storytelling lessons and a take-away for each:

"Corporate storytelling is all the rage these days. In a world that is swimming in content, more and more organizations have begun using stories to sell products and services, build support for a strategy or agenda, or shape public perception. Unfortunately, many of the stories they choose to tell are superficial or inauthentic, serving only to undermine the very goals they hope to achieve. For truly compelling stories, organizations should look to their own heritage.

In our experience, the most powerful story of all—one that is compelling, authentic and true—is rooted in one’s own experience. Smart organizations and their leaders know this. They act deliberately to capture what we call “heritage stories”—founding myths, remembered events or survival stories—and use them to help crystallize a sense of purpose, engage people in transformational change, and make them feel a part of something larger than themselves."

Read the full article to find out more about five heritage story examples and their impact to:

Instill a sense of mission and purpose

Pave the way for the next generation of leaders

Build confidence in a time of crisis

Bring an authentic identity to the marketplace

Reinvent a cherished brand

Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:

By understanding their own story leaders can then frame a vision for the future and rally the support they need to realize it.

I love this article. It never says “visual storytelling” in the piece; yet, that is exactly what this is. A science student was asked by her thesis advisor, “How would you explain science to someone who doesn’t know science?” This student answered the call artistically by creating a comic book. It worked well, and she raised the money to produce it with a Kickstarter campaign. Here is why I love her idea so much – it gets to the heart of what great storytelling is. Great storytelling simplifies the complex by turning it into a visceral story people “get.” Every organization should ask itself the following question that prompted this student to come with her visual story: “How would you explain your business to someone who doesn’t know your business?” If all branding, marketing and storytelling practitioners would ask that question, we’d all be better off. So here’s to better (visual) storytelling for all. And who doesn't love a great comic book?! I know I do.

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This review was written by Kathy Klotz-Guest for her curated content on business storytelling at www.scoop.it/t/just-story-it. Kathy, MA, MBA, is founder of Keeping it Human, whose mission is to help organizations create business storytelling and content that gets results. A comic improviser, she also leads workshops on business storytelling and idea generation for organizations, executives and teams. Follow Kathy on Twitter.

""Do I have enough stories for the work I want to do?" is a common question I hear. The number of stories you need changes based on where and when you will be using your stories. That's the short answer. Generally, you need three times the stories you think you will need.

However…As a coach, I like to think of the question a bit deeper. I think it's important to recognize the type of stories a teacher or teller needs, not just the volume of stories."

Read the full article to find out more about these six stories you should have in your repertoire:

"In this excerpt from Consciousness Engineering, Lisa Nichols gives some practical examples of what we mean by "telling your story" and how it can help you in every aspect of your life, whether it's professional or personal."

Most people tell a story. Showing requires more of you. It means finding the colours by showing what you were thinking, feeling, seeing.

Watch this short video to discover the difference and power of showing someone a story. You'll hear two examples of the difference of telling and showing someone a story by hearing:

Lisa's financial hardships raising her child

Being angry

Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:

In this short video, we get two powerful examples of what makes a great story. Lisa outlines it as:

Willingness to take risk

Being clear & concise with your story

A show me story not a tell me story.

To get your story going, identify the state of time it takes place in. Paint the picture, take me to the environment, set the backdrop.

"I am optimistic about the next phase of storytelling bringing the industry to a better place—although I do have a bone to pick with how some organizations knowingly (or unwittingly) get in their own way."

Read the full article to find out more about these five things companies do that can impede storytelling success:

"‘Reflections of The Past’ is an award-winning photo series by commercial advertising photographer Tom Hussey. The photographs show an elderly person looking pensively at the reflection of his/her younger self in the mirror. Hussey was inspired by a World War II veteran who said “I can’t believe I’m going to be 80. I feel like I just came back from the war. I look in the mirror and I see this old guy.”"

Read the full article to see more photos from this series that provides an amazing example of visual storytelling.

Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:

What a wonderful perspective! Who do you see, and what story do you envision, when you see/think about yourself?

Every photo I looked at in this series made me stop and want to find out more about each of these people's stories. This would be a really fun way to get your family involved in telling their stories.

"We are hard wired for stories but I don’t think we recognize what a huge reservoir of insights, lessons learned and experiences we have to share with others.

The intent of a story. Storytellers are, by nature, collaborative and giving and can have three major choices in terms of the intent of telling their story: to inform, to inspire or to provoke.

I believe leaders in organizations need to employ the use of stories more in their communications. The question is how do you do that? How do you construct a good story you can use as a key resource in your bag of leadership tools?"

Read the full article to find out more about these 4 key steps to constructing a great business story:

Make a list of people

Make a list of settings

Write down problems or challenges

Write down lessons learned

Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:

There are some additional final tips at the end of the article that are also worth noting:

Storytelling - it seems to be one of the hottest buzz words today. Everyone is saying that you must know how to be a good storyteller - but does anyone really know what that means?

Storytelling is the difference between rambling off data and giving it meaning. When we read a good book, we basically devour it - we feel swept into the story, time and space falls away - and it's sad to end it because it's like we're saying goodbye to a good friend. We don't look for 100% historical accuracy, technical data or facts and figures - we just give ourselves over to the experience So how do we take this into our writing, speeches and presentations? Whether you're selling a product, service, startup or even yourself, here are some storytelling tips that anyone can use."

Read the full article to find out why these storytelling tips work and how to use them:

"It makes sense. We are all busy. We can’t have our time wasted with trivialities like stories, can we? Well, I’m going to argue just the opposite: that far from being a waste of time, stories are one of the most time-efficient methods of communication available to us."

Read the full article to find out more about:

Outcome achieved - value of 'return on time' and the 3 outcomes this should be tested against

What happens when stories aren’t told - 3 examples

Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:

Stories effectively communicate ideas even if they take time to tell. This article demonstrates how to measure that after a story is told. The trick is knowing when a story is appropriate vs another mode of communication.

"Collecting stories is one of the top challenges that non-profits site when it comes to successful storytelling. For fundraising and communications professionals, this challenge persists because they are removed from program delivery and don’t have direct access to the stories. The solution to this problem is to proactively develop a story library so that you always have a number of stories at hand for fundraising and communications materials that you might be producing."

Read the full article to find out more about these 5 ways to build a story library:

Whenever I have asked non-profit professionals what the most challenging part of storytelling is, people consistently tell me that it’s is finding stories to tell. Not only does there need to be some organizational collaboration when it comes to finding stories to tell, you also have to interview people for their stories. The latter part often proves to be the most challenging and understandably so.

Read the full article to find out more about these 5 tips on how to ask better questions during interviews and tell better stories:

Do your research

Think about the trajectory of the story

Create a comfortable environment

Be curious

Relax! Remember it's just a conversation

Kim Zinke (aka Gimli Goose)'s insight:

I'm always in awe of reporters - they make it seem so easy. Maybe one day I'll sign up for a journalism class. Sites like Poynter (their tips & training section in particular) are great resources. Here's some additional tips I've collected along the way.

Ask open-ended questions.

The best questions are open-ended and most often use the W5 format. They begin with Who, What, When, Where, Why and How. They’re conversations starters and encourage expansive answers that produce an abundance of information.

Embrace the silence.

Immediately after you’ve asked your question you may want to fill the awkward, empty space in the air with more words, but don’t. Let your questions sit out there in the world.

Write questions ahead of time, but prioritize conversation.

Do your research and write down lots of questions. Only bring 15-20 questions to the interview. Only ask 10 of them. If you need to ask all 20, you’re not having a conversation.

Ask yourself - how would you tell this story to a friend?

It encourages you to think about the most interesting and relevant nuggets of the story and focuses on “Why should the reader care?” part. This approach can also help you move away from any jargon and bring a conversational tone to the piece.

And here's another article that provides 4 general questions you could always have at the ready.

"Storytelling has become a top-of-mind issue in recent times, as technology has democratized the power to share our stories with the world. The fact that it continues to be a pressing issue in today’s age of collaborative commerce is no surprise. What is, however, is the attention it is finally getting as a business competency that drives emotional engagement and resulting enhanced business performance.

Emotional engagement is the sister to rational engagement . Rational engagement is based on the stimulation of the mind, whereas emotional engagement is based upon the stimulation of the heart. In today’s age of brand experience, it seems that emotional engagement is proving to be more and more critical to achieving winning results and effective storytelling is at the heart of this movement."

Read the full article to see examples of this new paradigm and find out more about these four guiding principles that any brand, big or small, can follow to transform storytelling into a critical business competency:

"Football players practice ballet. Pianists repeat small sections of music until it’s perfect. In Outliers, it’s called “putting in your 10,000 hours.” In The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle names it “deep practice,” small exercises that are both challenging and repetitive.

The goal: Get better, quicker.

But what about writers? How do we pursue deep practice?"

Read the full article to find out more about these five techniques to brush up on your writing skills:

"There are scads of blog posts and books out there all telling you WHY storytelling is so important. But HOW the heck do you tell a great story? That’s the $20,000 question.

It’s a question I attempt to answer here on this blog. And it’s the study of millions of writers, poets, marketers, speakers, and teachers across the globe. If you’d like to join them and learn more about HOW to tell a great story (and how to keep at it when you start to doubt yourself), here are my top book recommendations for you."

Read the full article to find the list and links to 10 books to get you started on the path to telling a compelling business story.

"The 2015 Content Marketing Institute Survey clearly highlights the pain of not having a documented strategy to deliver effective storytelling. Regardless of B2B or B2C, we marketer’s are on the hook to put strategy into our content marketing.

But what does a content strategy look like? How does it relate to a marketing strategy? How do you know you have it?"

Read the full article to find out more about this summary of what business storytelling strategy looks like:

When done right you see the same person, purpose, and program in every piece of content.

The different pieces of content are complimenting each other, telling the same story.

"“The State of Storytelling” is a project that came to life out of an interest to know how the nonprofit sector is actually using stories and what results organizations are getting. Stories are constantly talked about as a tactic, but are they really helping nonprofits get better fundraising results?

Together, Network for Good and I teamed up to survey more than 400 nonprofits about storytelling."

Read the full article to download the findings of this research. You'll find out more about:

Innovation occurs in the most unexpected ways. Just imagine waiting in the cafeteria line and have a story you can read in 3 minutes in your hand. Grenoble, France is experimenting with ways to fill the gaps in people lives as they wait in lines. But imagine what you might do in your company with something that conveys a new initiative in a little story or explains a value of the company through a little story. I think there are lots of possibilities here. What do you think? This review was written by Madelyn Blair, PhD. Visit her at madelynblair.com or follow her @madelynblair.

Picking up a story while waiting, or on your way to the next destination. Seeing the headline my first association was with the Story Chairs an audiovisual project conceived and executed by Seattle artist/writer Tina Hogatt. Yours truly contributed a story to the series that visitors to Jack Straw Productions Gallery could enjoy seated in an especially constructed easy listening chair. My response to the story dispenser is two-fold. On one hand I applaud the idea that a larger audience is exposed to the work of short story writers, on the other hand I think stories are unfolding all around us, and allowing people to look around, and see what's going on in their environment, giving them room to spin their own tales ought to have room, or space to develop. My thought: provide a short short, or flash fiction piece, AND encourage the reader to look around and create their own narrative.

"Of all the communications tools available to a leader, perhaps none is more powerful than storytelling.

To reap the greatest rewards from storytelling in the workplace and steer clear of the risks, one must think strategically about the stories they tell, making sure they can first identify what they need a story to achieve so they can then find or develop the right story to achieve it. It also involves building great stories to be told. And while every story is different and unique, all great strategic stories are composed of five essential elements."

Read the full article to find out more about these 5 essential elements in leadership storytelling:

Help your leaders build their storytelling skills. They can be one of the most effective communication channels you have.

"Paying attention to the middle three element outlined above (Platform, Person and Plot) will ensure your story is engaging and captivating and something people will understand and want to listen to until the end. Paying attention to the first (Premise) and fifth (Point) elements will ensure your story is strategic: that it’s relevant to the workplace situation in which you’re telling it and that the audience is rewarded with something meaningful in hearing it."

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